One Comment

Haha! Your poetry is excellent as always. I loved the anthology you gave me. Do keep writing.

It’s important for successful people to engage in counterfactuals, even during the early stages of their life. For instance, I’m currently at a very good university, albeit not my first choice. But there was never any guarantee of me being here. If my parents had been poorer, or family life less stable, the chances of me doing well at school would have been reduced. I had some excellent teachers, many of whom have now left the profession because they have found better paid work elsewhere. In particular, I had a wonderful GCSE English teacher who was an absolute perfectionist. I’m still benefiting from the writing skills I learnt from her. I also had very ambitious friends who encouraged me to work hard- a lot of people, particularly boys, aren’t so lucky.

Having said all that, successful people should be proud of themselves, as long as they aren’t boastful and acknowledge the help they received along the way. In 2012, I remember being very angry when Obama said that wealthy people weren’t responsible for their own success. The fact is, being successful requires hard work, unless you are lucky enough to inherit. Even if you received help along the way, there’s nothing wrong with being proud of the effort you put in to start a business to go to university.
I think both European and American cultures have it wrong. In American culture, there is too much celebration of individual effort; Trump is the personification of that. But in Europe, there is too much sneering and envy of the wealthy, often accompanied by the suspicion that the rich are undeserving. At least in Britain, there is often the assumption that the rich are nasty, greedy people who care little for those less fortunate. Prejudice against the wealthy has to end, just as prejudice against the poor should stop as well.